Some of my most memorable trips have been to places I’d never intended to go.
Calabar, in eastern Nigeria, was one of them.
For all practical purposes, to the outside world, Nigeria equals the chaotic
megacity of Lagos and Lagos is Nigeria. Peer a little closer of course and
there’s a lifetime more to discover. Serendipity brought me first to Nigeria
(Lagos, of course), and then farther afield until the little aircraft I was in
was taxiing into Calabar, 400 miles east of Lagos and not far from the
Cameroonian border.
Calabar was a former slaving port of course, and now a quiet village between two
important rivers. An old colonial church flanked some government buildings, set
among hardwoods on the red soils of West Africa. The forest was serious, with
thick mahogany trees and a thick canopy. It was tropical, but not jungle. And
it was shrouded in damp, grey clouds when I arrived.
As the clouds parted the hillsides appeared. It could have been the hills of
northern Nicaragua, if I squinted, painted with the same mix of magic and
authenticity and primordial disquiet. Evenings the streets filled with couples
on motorbikes, goats in the marketplace, the church bell, trucks with
loudspeakers on their roofs advertising on wheels. For that matter it could
have been western Sumba in Indonesia, another place on earth that shares the
distinction of being memorable, magical, and totally unplanned.
May life bring more little evocative adventures like Calabar; it’s too short not
to catch a glimpse of these magical corners of earth.
